The Halfway Point

Day 3 of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is complete, and we are now halfway through the challenge!

We started the day just 3 minutes behind the Tokai University Solar Car Team, confident that we would be able to pass them. Surely enough, we passed them around half an hour after setting off for the day.

The first control stop we arrived at was Alice Springs, a small town right in the center of Australia. Because it was an actual town rather than just a roadside rest stop, it had a slightly more urban setup, which was more hectic to navigate than usual. But luckily we had no issues and arrived only 2 minutes behind the 4th place team, Sonnenwagen Aachen from Germany.

While we were gunning to overtake them, we also started noticing something was wrong with our car. It seemed like we were having issues with something rubbing against the wheels, namely the fenders, spats, or seals. While at the Alice Springs control stop, our driver, Terry, attempted to diagnose the issue, and determined that we needed to remove the spat on the front left wheel. However, outside of the driver, the team is not allowed to touch the car at control stops. So, we made a plan to have Terry drive about 30 seconds out of the control stop once it was our time to go, then pull to the side of the road immediately so that the spat that was causing issues could be removed.

Meanwhile, Team Sonnenwagen Aachen was having troubles of their own. They were slated to exit Alice Springs two minutes before us, but while attempting to back their car out of their parking spot at the control stop, they discovered that their car was stuck in a pothole. After attempting and failing to back out multiple times, two of their members resorted to pushing the car out. By the time they were on the road, there was only 40 seconds to go before we were able to leave.

This turned out to be advantageous to us, as we needed a few minutes to remove the spat. As soon as our timer hit 0 seconds, Astrum was out of her parking spot and drove about 50 meters before stopping to let the mechanical engineers remove the problematic part. The operation took no more than 3 minutes, and we were quickly back on the road, now around 4 minutes behind Sonnenwagen. After a while, we were able to pass them without any issues, moving into 4th place.

As we left Alice Springs and headed towards Erldunda, we were starting to see more headwinds, which was what we expected according to our weather forecast. Headwinds, or wind blowing directly against the direction in which we are driving, can pose problems for some solar cars. Luckily for us, Astrum’s bullet-shaped design means that she can handle headwinds better than her catamaran-style counterparts, as the pointy nose allows her to pierce through the winds.

At the same time, we were also starting to see more clouds in the sky. The presence of clouds means the absence of sun and the increasing presence of a front, or a change in air pressure. That meant that from there, we needed to be more careful of the amount of sun we get and analyze the tradeoffs between driving slower to absorb more sun or going faster to hit our target racetime. Clouds are not preferable since their presence means we no longer have a cushion of sunlight to fall onto, but they were also expected according to our weather forecast.

After passing Sonnenwagen, we were slowly but surely gaining on the Brunel Solar Team, the 7-time world champions currently sitting in 3rd place. While we were starting to close the gap slightly, the issue of something rubbing, or “scrubbing” against our wheel was back. Because it causes energy losses, we needed to slow down quite a bit so to not lose too much power.

Tonight, we are hard at work to fix the tire scrub issue. Although it is not ideal, we are still sitting solidly in 4thplace, a great position especially considering we started in 32nd place just two days before! Tomorrow, we will be driving on a familiar stretch of road, where we did 8 days of testing between Marla and Glendambo. This area is also known for having heavy winds, which notably blew multiple teams off the road in 2019. Although we had no issues with the winds while testing, we still need to be careful, as anything can happen.

We’re ready to continue pushing forward and can’t wait to get back on the road tomorrow. Brunel is a formidable team and catching up to them will be a challenge, but we’re not backing down. It’s time to beat the Dutch! Go Fast, Go Smooth, Go Blue!